Players don’t get a pass in this scandal

The buffoonery is well underway, headlined by the headline in the New York Post, aimed at the Red Sox and now former manager Alex Cora: "Curse of the Scambino." Hardy har har. Real knee slapper here, this whole cheating thing.

Except that I have a question: What assurances do we have that the cheating that permeated baseball during the recent runs of the Astros and Red Sox is going to stop? Maybe the masses believe that commissioner Rob Manfred's disciplinary measures, aimed thus far at A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow of the Astros, will be a deterrent.

I don't. Here's why: The players bear as much — if not more — responsibility for all the banging on garbage cans and their other clandestine forms of gaining competitive advantages.

And yet none were disciplined. Why? The tentacles of the players' union would render any punitive measures toothless by the end of what would be a ponderous legal process.

Translation: The players cheated because they knew they could.

Translation: The inmates are running the asylum.

And they're supposed to care if their manager or general manager might get fired or banned next time this happens? And why would they care, if they could reap the benefits of winning a championship?

The players involved in this are sociopaths. Period. I know. You hear

the word "sociopath" and think about some screwball shooting up a grocery store. Au contraire. A sociopath simply lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. He or she knows right from wrong and simply doesn't care.

Major League Baseball warned every team and player well in advance of the 2017 Astros about using technology to cheat. The Astros and Red Sox did it anyway. That is sociopathic by definition.

Here is what else I believe, as written by baseball columnist Joel Sherman the other day: "MLB knows the cheaters are almost always ahead of the police and that new implementations of current technology or new technology will reveal further ways to cheat. Keep in mind this cheating sprung from teams seeing how much could be gleaned from the real-time monitors initially used to advise managers whether to make an instant replay challenge. More technology, more unintended consequences."

So maybe this form is cheating is over. They'll find other ways.

And so unless Manfred is willing to make technology less available, at least while games are played, what would make anyone trust baseball anymore? How do we know the product for which we are paying three-digit ticket prices and $15 beers is actually legitimate? How do we know if our team isn't cheating? Because they say so?

Hinch sat at a press conference this past October and called allegations of his team cheating "a joke." And because he — and other cheats like him — say something with conviction, we're supposed to their words like one of the Beatitudes? Sorry. Not buying any of it. Maybe baseball is still worth watching in that pro wrestling sort of way. For entertainment only. It's probably not a good idea to invest much emotional energy in your team, just as you wouldn't lose sleep if Hulk

Hogan lost to the Iron Sheik. Because who really knows anymore what's truly legitimate?

Baseball began losing me a few years ago with the analytics revolution. Maybe someone could help me understand why, if analytics are sacrosanct, teams like the Sox and Stros — immersed in their differential equations — still had to cheat to win. The floor is yours, eggheads.

Meanwhile, if Opening Day gets here and dugouts and clubhouses are still awash in video equipment, I wouldn't trust the outcome of a baseball game anymore unless Jesus himself signed off on the boxscore. I no longer trust baseball or its players. They were told not to cheat, knew the potential consequences and did it anyway, hanging a number of people out to dry.

I used to think conspiracy theories were best left to Oliver Stone. Not so much anymore. Because how do I really know whether Jose Altuve guessed right on the 2-0 slider Aroldis Chapman threw him — the last pitch of the season for the Yankees, it turned out — or if Altuve knew it was coming?

Answer: I don't know. And neither does anyone else.

It's just not good enough anymore. This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro